About This Image

Times Square

Theme: Purpose

File: DF 4099

I had a meeting in Manhattan and decided to stay an extra day to photograph. I walked around with a camera and happened to be in Times Square around four-thirty in the evening. Walking in from a side street, the sea of people, the traffic and the colorful building-sized signs made me laugh out loud. To get out of the way, I squeezed between a pole and a waste can and made several shots. Leaving, I stopped at a light and this is what I saw.

I selected this image because it diverges significantly from my usual preference, which is simplicity. In a section of my Visual Communication classes, I spoke about the strategies of “Image Simplicity vs. Image Complexity,” the former best applied when the objective is to express a feeling or convey a sensibility, the latter serving the purpose of conveying information. Take any image and count the visual elements. The fewer the elements, the simpler the image and the greater the emotional impact. The greater the number of elements within an image, the more information that can be derived from it. Sometimes, an image comes along that accomplishes both.